


Reconciliation by Charlotte C Hill

by charlottechill



Category: Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: M/M, Old West, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-07
Updated: 2011-11-07
Packaged: 2017-10-25 19:08:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/273733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charlottechill/pseuds/charlottechill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vin asks questions that make Chris think too much. Chris, being Chris, takes steps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reconciliation by Charlotte C Hill

  
[Reconciliation](viewstory.php?sid=623) by [Charlotte C Hill](viewuser.php?uid=2)  


  


  


  
Summary: Vin asks questions that make Chris think too much. Chris, being Chris, takes steps.  
Categories: Slash > Old West Characters:  Chris/Buck, Josiah, Vin  
Word count: 6531 

The afternoon was hot and clear, the sun having chased away all signs of spring and cooked all the water out of desert-dry air. Chris found himself enjoying the trip back to Four Corners and another easy job completed without incident. The stage company really ought to protect its payroll with more than a couple of hired guns.

"What you thinkin' that's got you smilin' like that?" Vin asked him.

Startled, Chris glanced over. "Just that you and me wouldn't have been much use if anybody really wanted to take that stage. Hell, two guns for that whole payroll?"

Vin chuckled a little. "Well, Chris," he said, his words slow and lazy, his accent heavier and dragging, making one syllable slide into an easy, familiar two: _Chreiss_. "I don't reckon they pay us for who we might kill. I reckon they pay us for all the men you done killed in the past. You scare the shit outta folks that don't know you."

"I never scared you."

"Yeah," Vin grinned, "but I don't scare easy. And I knowed you pretty quick, anyhow."

There wasn't much to say to that, so Chris kept his peace.

"Ain't seen you smilin' much lately."

"I don't smile much," Chris replied, sobering. He hadn't had much to smile for, after Ella Gaines had come back into his life and damn near destroyed it again.

"Damn," Vin said, almost under his breath. Chris glanced over, waiting. "I done chased it off."

Chris didn't understand, and didn't particularly care to. They passed another quarter hour in silence, until Chris got an inkling of Vin's shifting mood: confusion, it felt like. He glanced left from under the flat brim of his hat, assessing the man at his side. He waited for Vin to speak, but the silence stretched, growing thicker and less comfortable than it typically was between them.

When he caught Vin frowning over at him, he ordered, half-exasperated, "Out with it."

"I don't know," Vin prevaricated. "Ain't my business."

"Your choice," Chris said, knowing now that Vin would get to it eventually. 'Ain't my business' was an invitation to be told to shut up, and Chris had yet to close that door between them.

"All right then," Vin said. "How come you ain't got back with Buck?"

Chris stiffened, and Pony jerked in reaction to the tug on his mouth. Vin stared at him, eyes clear and honest and curious, not for a moment permitting him to pretend that he didn't understand.

"What the hell are you sayin'?" he growled anyway, breaking eye contact and staring off down the road they followed. Four Corners was still miles and hours away, though in that instant there was nothing Chris wanted more than the saloon and whiskey and to be away from Vin.

Vin shrugged. "I ain't never seen people act like you two who ain't brothers or bedmates, and you ain't brothers. Hell, the way you get all jealous of his gals... Chris, a man don't complain about where another man puts his dick unless it's his wife or his sister involved. You ain't never said a word about another one of us, or what we do or don't do, unless it’s going to cause trouble for the rest of us." He shifted a little, uncomfortable, and Chris knew he was referring to that mess with Charlotte Richmond. "But you sure do get on Buck."

"Buck's the only one can't keep it in his pants," he grunted, surly and defensive.

"Still ain't no cause to harp at him about it. 'Less you got a reason."

Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. Buck had never been a man to pine away in quiet desperation. Hell, he'd never been a man who could pass by a whorehouse without ducking in for a meal and conversation, and often enough he ended up invited into some woman's bed. Much as Chris tried to ignore it, he'd never gotten used to it, even after all these years.

"Chris?"

Vin's voice sounded merely curious. Kind, even. Chris knew he hadn't incriminated himself, that he could easily, right now, say 'sorry, Vin, you barked up the wrong tree on that one,' and Vin would believe him even against his instincts. But he had no reason to lie about it. Not to Vin, anyway.

He sighed, and said softly, "You ain't never had to live with him."

With a low chuckle, Vin confided, "He'd jaw my ear off. Make me crazy."

Chris knew better. Buck actually settled to silence easily, when he was at peace and the mood called for it. Come to think of it, Vin knew better too.

"But you've lived with him before, ain't ya?" Vin went on. "When y'all rambled together. Sounds like he spent a lot of time with you and your family, from the way I've heard it told."

"Buck's a worse gossip than any gaggle of women I ever saw," Chris complained, but he couldn't rouse any ire. They'd drifted apart more than once over the years, but never for long, and how things settled when they drifted back together depended on which way the wind blew, it seemed--he could never predict if they'd shake hands like friends, embrace like brothers or fall into the nearest bed or run behind the nearest rock, and pull each other's clothes off with violent speed or slower care. But when he'd bought the land east of Eagle Bend years back, Buck found out and came to see him, and that time they'd been like brothers.

Chris hadn't complained, either. A foreign urge had taken him, an unknown, unnamed hunger that had simmered unsatisfied until he'd seen Miss Sarah Connelly one sunny afternoon.

Buck, being Buck, had helped him plot to win her.

"Wasn't tryin' to pry, exactly, Chris," Vin said kindly, making Chris wonder how stormy his face must look. "It just don't make no sense to me."

 _That's because you've never been married,_ Chris thought bitterly. Chris had looked at Sarah and for the first time in his life, looked forward to old age: porch rockers and achy bones, holding her hand with its aged, paper-thin skin and watching grandchildren play.

They had nearly two hours ahead of them and Chris clamped his jaw shut, ready to ride the rest of the way home in stony silence. Vin didn't utter another word for half of that time. They forded a shallow creek, stopped to let the horses drink, and Chris knew Vin had said his piece, and _wouldn't_ speak another word about it.

That should have been all right with him. He couldn't say for the life of him why it wasn't, but standing there while the horses nibbled on tufts of tall grass by the water, he found himself talking. "You ever known a man and thought, 'there's my future?'"

Vin frowned, but after a moment the light dawned. "Not like that," he admitted. "But then, I ain't never looked at a woman that way neither."

Chris looked at him, resisting the frown that wanted to show, but Vin saw it anyway and hunched his shoulders a little. "Not for more'n a day," he amended grudging but honest.

"Ain't the same anyway," Chris said, meaning it. "I looked at Sarah and saw children and grandchildren, and hard work and shouting matches and so much hope. I saw a future."

He didn't know why he was saying these things, especially to Vin. He had relied on their ease around each other, the way they could share silence without getting edgy, and his sense that they understood each other. He'd never even considered baring his soul, to this man or any other. Skittish as hell, he pulled his canteen from the saddle horn. "I'm done talkin'," he said shortly, and walked to the edge of the creek.

When they were mounted and moving again, Vin said quietly, "You're done talkin', so don't waste your breath answerin'. I was just wonderin', though, was Buck in that future you saw, when you looked at your wife?"

His whole body ran hot and cold and hot again, and he grit his teeth. As quick as drawing a gun, he was ready to fight, and there was only one right thing to do when he felt like this around friends. Dropping his heel back, he tapped it against Pony's side and pushed him into a gallop. He didn't have to listen to this shit. He didn't have to think about it and not Vin Tanner nor anybody else breathing could make him.

7 - 7 - 7

Buck Wilmington lazed on the boardwalk beside the saloon's batwing doors, ass in a chair and feet up on an empty barrel. Josiah sprawled lazily in the chair beside him, head back, eyes opened to slits and watching the town with the emotionless eyes of a hawk. Buck turned his head, sensed Josiah do the same, to watch Vin walk Peso up the street. Vin pulled in by Pony, who Chris had left saddled and hot at the hitching post closest to the saloon doors.

Vin's face looked as calm and smooth as a lake. "Howdy, Vin," Buck greeted.

"Buck." He stopped and dismounted, wrapping the reins around the saddle horn and slapping Peso on the rump. Thinking with his belly as usual, the feisty gelding trotted down the street in a beeline for the livery stable.

"What happened out there?" Josiah mumbled.

Vin sighed and stepped onto the boards. "Nothin'. Stuck my nose in where it didn't belong."

Buck wasn't surprised. It generally took a lot to scare Chris, or hurt him somehow that didn't involve him shooting the offender, so nothing else could have explained his foul mouth, threatening glare and aggressive swallows toward forgetfulness that had run Buck, Josiah, and half of the rest of the clientele out of the bar.

"Lucky he didn't bite it off," Josiah noted lazily.

Buck tried to glare at Vin, but he was sure it came off as something more like a grin. "Next time, just bring us back a burlap sack of rattlers and toss them in there. A man can't even get himself a drink in peace."

"He run y'all out?" Vin asked, his eyes calculating the level of damage he'd done.

"Not hardly," Buck denied, indignant.

"No sir," Josiah agreed. "We just thought a retreat was in order."

Buck chuckled, watched Vin shake his head and grin at Josiah's easy words. Chris was damned lucky for the new friends he'd found—hell, they both were.

Vin shrugged and pushed through into the dim, stuffy interior of the saloon. In following him with his eyes, Buck bumped into Josiah's hawk stare and tangled knowingly. "Into the lion's den," Josiah mused.

"Better him than me," Buck said with a grin. He'd been there plenty of times before and had already decided it wasn't his turn today.

Chris had heard them, and cursed under his breath. When Vin stepped through the doors and paused, silhouetted by the sunlight, Chris thought harshly that he was an easy target, from here. _Rein it in, jackass,_ he ordered himself. Vicious thoughts ended in vicious words, and in the year and a half they'd known each other he and Vin hadn't had a real dust-up. He aimed to keep it that way for as long as possible.

Vin strolled to Chris's table and dropped into a chair uninvited. "You're gonna take it out on somebody, take it out on me," he said quietly. "I'm the one riled you."

Chris's eyes never left his half-full whiskey glass. "You didn't rile me," he muttered after a moment. He hadn't even drunk much, just--he hadn't been able to look at Buck, so he'd chased him off a bit ago. Josiah, picking sides, had left with him.

Vin sat in patient silence, waiting for him, Chris knew.

Yes, Buck had been in that future, bow-legged and hobbling from crawling onto too many women over the years. Chris had wanted to picture him balding and toothless just because Buck, when Chris had hinted at easy old age, had happily asserted that he was going to be the handsomest old stud ever to be put into a pine box, and that his death would come from a heart attack in the arms of a willing woman. Of course, the real picture was kinder than that; Buck's eyes still sparkled, and most of the lines on his face came from laughing too much. Chris had never thought about what Buck's wrinkled old visage in that vision might have meant before Vin asked today, but Buck was his family, whether Chris liked it or not.

Vin leaned forward, bringing their heads closer together. "Wasn't my business, Chris," he whispered by way of apology.

Chris lifted his eyes to stare at Vin, saw the compassion and friendship in eyes a whole different color of blue. No, it wasn't Vin's business, but now Chris felt knotted up inside, scared of living, terrified of loving again—even loving someone who could take care of himself as well as Buck could. He felt bitterly impotent against his sense of betraying his wife's memory, too.

"Chris?" There it was again, _Chreeiss,_ like the creak of an old hinge.

"Nothin'," he said, and reached for his glass. The whiskey tasted smooth by now, he was so used to its savor. It washed down like water, and he held on to the empty glass.

"I don't know much about your wife," Vin said slowly, "but I can't think she'd want you doin' this to yourself." His voice was barely louder than a whisper, and not even Ezra, sitting up at his usual table and one of the few patrons left in the bar, could have heard it. "There ain't nobody understands your loss better, neither. Ain't nobody but the rest of us who'd saddle up faster to kill that bitch who done her in."

Chris glared hard at him. "What the hell's got into you, Vin?" he asked, emotion roiling between anger and despair. It wasn't like the man, pushing like this. Hell, it wasn't even like him to bring up the past at all, Chris's or anyone else's. At least, not to Chris; Chris knew Vin had talked to Buck about him, and that Vin knew more about his past than Chris would have readily shared but that Buck had. Hell, Chris didn't even mind it, not really. Not anymore.

"Buck just ain't seemed himself lately. You been off your feed too." He paused and glanced away, a guilty look shadowing his eyes. "Ain't a reason good enough to go pryin', I know. I'd best get along."

Vin moved to push his chair back.

"My boy's birthday," Chris said, and sighed like an old bellows.

Vin froze.

Sarah's labor had been terrible to witness, the hours in which he could do nothing but stay out of the way, his own fear, the midwife's calm reassurances and compassionate guidance to new fathers and their friends. When that tiny infant had sucked in its first breath, he had looked at Sarah and never had she seemed so beautiful. A loud sniff had made him turn his head to where Buck stood, his eyes glued to that little life on Sarah's belly, joyful tears streaming unchecked down his face. _Good lord, Sarah, Chris… he's perfect,_ Buck had choked out, in the breathless voice of a man in a Cathedral catching his first glimpse of God.

"Meant something to him, did it?" Vin asked, no longer pushing, just offering.

It wasn't something Chris could talk about. It was too big to talk about, too hard. Buck had hopped from foot to foot like a little kid who had to piss, waiting his turn to hold the baby. He'd cradled one hand behind that pointy head and laid his arm up Adam's back, using skills learned, Buck later admitted, from years of sleeping with married women. Chris didn't think Buck could have been more proud if that child was his own… and therein lay the answer to Vin's question.

He looked up, caught Vin's eye. "I'll see ya," he said, asking his friend to leave in the politest of ways.

Vin stared for a second before smiling slightly. He nodded and rose. "Sure thing, pard."

Chris watched his friend walk out with that rolling gait that eased the ache in his back and made the women stare sidelong, unbeknownst to Vin himself. Out the window, he could see just the corner of Buck's shoulder, silhouetted against the sun that bounced off the dusty street. He looked down at his whiskey bottle, pushed his empty glass aside. Pulling out his pocket watch, he gave himself ten minutes: ten minutes to change his mind, ten minutes for Vin to clear far enough away that Chris wouldn't have to meet his eyes as he rode out of town. Ten minutes to call himself a fool, for doing this at all… for waiting so long… for _not_ doing it before now because he'd been feeling scared like a little boy, and guilty...

And then he rose and moved with long, purposeful strides. "Buck," he said, pausing with his hands on the swinging doors, "saddle up. We got things to do."

Buck looked up, surprised, but rose without comment.

"Need any help?" Josiah asked.

"Buck'll do," he said, and turned back inside to settle his tab with Inez. By the time Chris reached the livery stable with Pony, Don was in bridle by the fence and Buck was walking with purposeful stride toward the tack room for his blanket and saddle.

They rode in silence, though Buck was thinking so loud that Chris could hear the gears grinding in the man's head. When Chris turned into new grass off the road, taking a shortcut overland to his cabin, Buck finally asked. "When are you gonna tell me what's goin' on?"

Chris frowned, not at the words but at the wariness behind them. He couldn't much blame Buck, he supposed; he'd run him out of the saloon less than an hour before he'd hauled him away. This had been a hard month, the past few years—for both of them.

"Ain't nothin' wrong, Buck." He eased Pony right so Buck could bring Don alongside and they walked abreast through knee-high grass. Something Vin had said kept rolling through his mind. "If I ever got the chance, you'd help me kill Ella Gaines, wouldn't you?"

"You hear somethin'?" Buck asked, his voice gone hard as stone on stone.

"Just answer the question."

"We ever get the chance, Chris, I'll hold her down for you if you want to make her die slow."

It wasn't what he'd expected. Bitch, crazy, murderer, she was still a woman. And Buck was still Buck.

"I think about it sometimes," Buck admitted when the silence had stretched a bit. "I never could tolerate hearing a woman scream, but I wouldn't lose sleep over any suffering Ella Gaines had to bear. Not after what she's done."

"Yeah." He'd thought about it some, himself. Wondered what could hurt a woman as crazy as she was, knowing he should just put her down like a mad dog but hungry for her suffering. He hoped she suffered now, wherever she was out there.

Chris shook his head. "Didn't find out nothin' about her. Just remembered I missed you." He didn't say anything more, but then, he didn't have to; Buck's widened eyes and tilted head was answer enough.

"Huh?"

"Don't make me repeat it," Chris muttered on a sigh. "You remember, I used to talk about growing old, you limpin' around the ranch, still wandering off to chase old widows? You said you'd be the handsomest old geezer around, and you'd die fuckin' some gal."

"I remember." The two words were soft, and heavy with the weight of good memories.

"Hilda was chasin' you around that place, and you were going hot and cold on her, and that felt..." he didn't know how to say it. "It felt familiar. Right."

"Felt like back then, with you and Sarah, and me and all my gals?" Buck guessed for him.

Chris nodded, hating himself for not seeing through Ella Gaines, but glad that he wasn't blaming Buck for anything this time around. "So Vin asked me how come I hadn't ever got back with you."

Buck stiffened just for a second, the risks of that discovery sending a bolt of fear through him like it would any man. Chris waited until he settled back down, thinking it through and dismissing the idea that Vin could be a threat to either one of them, waited until a low chuckle escaped him. "What did you tell him?"

"Nothin'."

Silence, just the buzzing of animals and insects and the quiet clomp of horses' hooves on soft, grassy earth.

"Well what are you _gonna_ tell him?"

Chris shrugged. "Nothin' to tell, is there?"

"Is there?"

Chris looked up, ready to recant everything he'd said on this ride and send Buck back to town, but Buck was just waiting to meet his eyes, head tilted down, expectant, not challenging at all.

"You ready to give up your women?" he asked. He'd never asked that before, never even hinted at it—well, not more than the snide remarks that had let Vin catch him out, anyway.

"Most of 'em," Buck said, and Chris looked askance at him then frowned hard when Buck shrugged. "A couple, they're just good women, widowed and lonely, and they'd keep the gossip mill running well enough to give us some cover, I think."

Chris smiled and shook his head. "Well I guess it's a sacrifice you'd be willing to make." It was one they could both bear up under, too.

When they arrived at the cabin, they released the horses to graze around the yard and Chris pulled out two straight-backed chairs so they could sit on the porch in the shade. Buck was already fidgeting though, and every few seconds he'd look toward the cabin door, then to Chris, until Chris felt a smile stretch his face so wide his cheeks started to ache.

"What?" Buck huffed after an hour or more had passed.

"You," Chris said, and looked at him. "Can't just settle down and be happy."

"Oh, I could settle down and be happy," Buck replied, but his voice went low and soft, and the offer was plenty clear. "Just," he added in case it wasn't, "I could do it better in bed after I'm not so... tense."

Chris glanced down Buck's body, unsurprised to see the bar of flesh pressing against the front of tan trousers. "You're a grown man," he chided.

"I'm a grown man who knows what he wants," Buck shot back.

Chris met blue eyes, eyes dark and warm and so familiar to him, and read too much there: desire and urgency, anxiety and fear of loss, loyalty and love. And impatience. Chris reached out to slap his knee. "Well come on, then, if you've gotta," he said, laconic enough that Buck glared and reached to tackle him back against the wall.

"You're the one called me out here," Buck said, gruff and annoyed, and that was familiar too. "You tellin' me you were planning to sit on the porch all day and watch the grass grow?"

"Watch somethin' grow," Chris grinned, and pressed forward with his hip, into the hard shaft Buck was sporting.

Buck's hands slid off his shoulders and up into his hair, holding his head tenderly. "It's not some woman that's gonna be the death of me one day, it's—"

Chris's whole body stiffened in helpless anger. "Don't say it!" he cut in, the words as sharp as a knife, fast as a bullet. "Don't even say that."

All thoughts of teasing fled Buck's face, replaced with a quiet sadness that Chris wouldn't call grief. Buck knew as well as he did how many ways a man could die, especially with the kinds of lives they lived. But it wasn't something Chris was going to think on. It wasn't something he _could_ think on, not if he was going to give them a chance in hell.

Buck leaned forward then and pressed their mouths together; his mustache tickled Chris's upper lip, and Chris wondered how long he'd have to work on the man to get him to shave it off. But he relaxed by slow degrees, refusing even to open his mouth until his muscles didn't feel so wire-taut. When he did though, Buck drew back. "Long as you're around to see me off," Buck said, stubborn, "I reckon I wouldn't mind dying of old age."

Chris frowned, wondering just how bad Buck had gotten at love talk, to be spouting shit like this now. Still, he had no intention of talking about that either. The man's dick was still hard. He nudged Buck away from him and turned for the door, and when he got inside he took off his gun belt, his boots and socks, his pants and his shirt, and lay down on the bed in his union suit. Buck didn't stop there but took off his underwear too, and Chris felt his neck heat up seeing that hard cock pointed at him, thinking of what they were about to get up to right in the middle of the day.

But Buck surprised him. He crawled over Chris and tucked up behind him, pressing his body along Chris's length—and not doing anything more than that.

Seemed like maturity was finally catching up with the man, that he didn't go tearing at the buttons at Chris's chest or fly. Buck's cock was still hard, nestled in between the cheeks of his ass and pushing the thin cotton in with it. Buck just lay there though, his arm heavy across Chris's waist. Chris could feel the strong heartbeat against his back, could feel that damned cock rub every minute or so, like it was just trying to get more comfortable. It wasn't long before Chris was the one getting impatient.

"Buck?" he asked after long minutes had passed.

"Mmm?"

"We just gonna lie here?"

A huff of breath tickled his neck, then Buck's mustache did, too. "Just waiting for you to say the word, Chris," he said, teasing, and Chris flushed again, this time in annoyance. Damned man was baiting him.

"You _know_ I c'n go without it a hell of a lot longer than you can," he sniped.

A big hand pressed against his chest, keeping him from pushing up and off the bed, and rubbed softly over his heart. "No argument there," Buck said with a quiet chuckle. "Just," another sigh, another kiss to the back of his neck that made his skin shiver there, "you got me thinking about growin' old with you. That's a whole lot of years. Reckon I got no reason to be in such a hurry."

That was more like it. More terrifying too, so Chris wriggled over until they faced each other and just looked at the man until one hand reached to cup his cheek and Buck leaned in. It had been a long time since their tongues had touched—two years at least, the last time they'd met up before Chris had found him in Four Corners. But there was no nervousness from either one of them, just familiar passion, silent confession that it might be something different this time, something more. It wasn't long before Buck's nimble fingers had his drawers open from neck to groin, and Chris pulled back to shrug out of soft cotton, to push it down his body and kick it off the bed, leaving him as naked as Buck was. And as hard.

He wanted... he wanted. He just wanted, and he didn't care what, so he let Buck lead them this first time, and rolled to his back when that mustache tickled past his navel and on down. Sucking in a ragged breath, he stared blindly at the bare board ceiling and buried his hands in thick hair, felt the movement of that head and the skill being brought to bear. Buck had unsurpassed talent in this. Or maybe it was just that a man's mouth was bigger, and better suited to the task than a woman's; Chris couldn't compare because he'd never had it from another guy. But then, Buck hadn't either, to his knowledge, and Buck said much the same when it was Chris doing the sucking. Mouth hot, wet and tenderly working his shaft, Buck shouldered his legs wider and reached between them, fondled his balls and reached further back. A gentle finger stroked over his hole, pressed but didn't breach him, and Chris almost wished Buck would. But there'd be time for that, time for everything, and that thought coupled with a wicked slide of wide, flat tongue set him off.

He bucked up, shouted wordlessly and spilled, holding tight to Buck's head when Buck might have pulled away to watch him come.

Buck always had been a visual sort of man.

Chris came down slowly, letting his hips settle heavily into the mattress and easing Buck off him with gentle tugs to his hair. When Buck climbed back up his body to rest heavily atop him, eyes afire and breathing hard, lips wet with spit and swollen from kissing or sucking or both, Chris smiled. "Was good," he said, offering the words easily.

Buck's hips flexed once, rubbing his cock along the crease of Chris's thigh. "Yeah," he replied, his gaze roving over Chris's face like he was studying a map, taking in the details of whatever it was Chris was revealing: satisfaction, surely. Peace, he hoped; he felt that, and Buck had a right to know.

"Come on, ease over," he breathed, and followed when Buck rolled to his back, followed the same path down Buck's body that Buck had taken down his, and finished Buck the same way: heart pounding, eyes shut, lips stretched wide around the spongy flesh, finger just pressing against the tight little hole in back. Buck's fingers threaded through his hair and held him steady 'til the end.

They dressed in peaceable quiet, and with nothing more than a look and a smile, found themselves back on the porch in their chairs, talking haltingly of old times, good memories. Even some bad ones slipped in, but they were easier for the sharing, and Chris thought lazily about how this could work, how often Buck was off somewhere chasing a woman and how the townsfolk would doubtless think he was still doing that, when he was out here at the cabin.

Quiet settled on them for a time, peaceful and easy until Chris felt the stare he was getting. Eventually he turned his head to meet it. This—whatever it was they were becoming for each other now—made him deeply content, and he could read that same contentment on Buck's handsome face. He hadn't ever pictured this, and he knew for damned sure that Buck hadn't. Buck might not even be able to picture it much even now. But then, Chris didn't know what it ought to look like either. He just knew how he felt. This peace, it was worth a lot of wrongs.

"What'd Vin say, anyway?" Buck asked.

"About what?"

Buck's frowns, Chris thought, made the man look damned stupid. Chris smirked; he'd likely never tell him that again. "About you and me, Chris," Buck huffed. "What made him think, well, anything?"

Chris shrugged. It hadn't occurred to him to ask, and he sure as hell wasn't going to now. "Guess he knows me pretty well," he said eventually.

Buck frowned again, and didn't look quite so stupid this time. "Yeah, but still," Buck started again. "We hadn't done anything for him to see."

Buck was clearly wrong about that. Chris took a second to decide what, if anything, he was gonna say on the subject. "He said only brothers and lovers get on like us. And..." he didn't really want to say it, but if he didn't he knew Buck would break down and ask Vin, which would pretty much answer any other questions Vin might have. "Guess he might've picked up on my opinion of you and all your women."

"That ain't hard to do," Buck groused. "You complain about them moren'..." Buck trailed off, and Chris shot another, guiltier look his way.

Not many ways Buck could have finished that sentence: _more than a daddy,_ or _more than a wife._ Either one made him want to squirm. "Yeah," he agreed, and shrugged. No sense worrying about what was mostly in the past. "Like I said, he's sharp. And he knows me."

Buck leaned over and patted Chris's knee, fingers squeezing the knobs of bone, and Chris tightened his muscles to keep from flinching away from the ticklish reaction. Buck's eyebrows went up like he'd just remembered, and Chris was that close to shoving Buck's hand off his leg when it slid up further, just resting on his thigh.

Chris looked suspiciously at Buck's hand, trying to decide if Buck was starting something, but apparently not, so he dropped his own hand over it and pressed it harder against his leg.

"Don't go talking to him about this," Chris said after a minute.

Buck snorted. "I don't think so!"

Chris waved a hand. "No, I mean..." he trailed off, not exactly sure what he'd meant. For all Buck's flapping, the man wouldn't just out and try to start a casual conversation about this, not unless he thought he ought to. Still, nobody had ever known before, as far as Chris knew, and it unsettled him some. He figured it unsettled Buck too. "Good enough to know he'll have our backs if we need it," he said, trying to make it sound all right.

"Yeah," Buck sighed, happy. The hand on his thigh squeezed. "He seem... well, how did he seem?" Buck asked.

Chris sighed. The man couldn't leave anything alone. "Not bothered," he replied, answering the real question.

"Good," Buck said.

Chris looked over at Buck, really looked at him. Buck had leaned back in his chair and settled more deeply into it, boneless and happy. He missed Buck's hand on his leg, which was patently ridiculous.

"So he just guessed, huh?"

Chris shrugged. "It seemed like more than a guess. I could've denied it, I suppose."

Buck reached back to his leg and patted it. "I'm glad you didn't, Chris. Real glad."

That was about the most Buck had said on this subject since Chris had dragged him out of town, but Chris was sure it wouldn't be the last he said. Buck would get comfortable, then he'd make subtle innuendos in public. In private, nothing would be subtle at all. The thought made him squirm, but he knew what he'd signed on for. "Yeah," he said after a minute, because Buck would want to hear it. "Don't go messin' it up now, Buck."

"I've got no plans to. But still, you might want to talk to Vin, see how he worked things out."

Chris frowned. "I wouldn't know what the hell to say to him."

Buck tilted his head to look over at him and grinned. "You never know what to say to people."

Chris smirked; Buck was probably right about that. He could picture the conversation Buck might want to have, trying to make this sound as normal as church on Sundays, like anybody who thought different was wrong-headed somehow. And while there was no truth to that, there wasn't any truth to it when Buck talked about all his women that way, either. Hell, Vin would probably accept it; JD certainly would.

That thought made him worry, that JD would figure them out, but the kid was the nosiest of all of them, and he knew JD used to follow Buck when he was off to meet a woman, because the kid had refused to believe Buck got it as much as he said he did. Ezra might piece things together, since Vin had, but Ezra wouldn't say a word about it. So it was just the kid he had to worry about.

"Best warn JD off," he said after a time.

Buck jerked and sat a little straighter in his chair, and his hand left Chris's leg again. "Why me?"

Chris snorted. "You want _me_ to do it?"

Buck's eyebrows drew down and he shook his head, then he chuckled a little. "Can't quite picture how that would go."

"Hell no," Chris agreed. "But you know he's gonna get curious. Know he'll try to satisfy that curiosity. I swear, Buck, he pops his head up at the wrong moment and I'll take it off for him."

"You would, too," Buck huffed like he was annoyed by the idea, but Chris knew better. Buck would like Chris's urge to protect them too much to be offended.

"Yeah, I would. So talk to him."

"Ain't lookin' forward to that," Buck said absently, but he'd settled back into his chair already, and clearly the task wasn't beyond him.

Long, quiet minutes passed before Buck drew in a deep enough breath to get Chris's attention. "Go on," he prodded, after Buck had squirmed for a couple of silent minutes.

"You know what I am looking forward to?" Buck asked. Chris just tilted his head and waited wordlessly until Buck went on. "Sunset, so I can take you back to bed."

Chris gave him the censuring frown that pronouncement deserved. "We ain't been out of bed an hour," he scoffed. "And we ain't kids anymore."

Buck's hand returned to his thigh, squeezing gently. "Don't matter none. Still looking forward to gettin' back there. We've got a lot of time to make up for, the way I see it."

Chris knew the man beside him well enough not to be surprised. He knew himself well enough not to want to argue the point; maybe they did. "Not a minute before," he said idly, though he couldn't say why he was waiting. He'd thought when they rode out that they might crawl into his bed and never leave it, but he was glad of this ease between them, glad Buck was showing some kind of restraint. "And we need to see to the horses first."

Buck's hand squeezed his thigh again before it set to a gentle rubbing.

"In a minute," he amended, and settled a little more deeply in his chair, stretching his legs out and incidentally letting the nearer one move closer to Buck. Buck liked that, Chris could tell from the smile that played around his eyes and the gentle stroke of his thigh that started him simmering more than that simple touch had any right to.

Buck knew him pretty well too, and while that would bother the hell out of him from time to time, in the end, he decided it was worth it.

 _the end_  


 _"There's more to life than drinking and fighting."_  


  


This story archived at <http://dnf.slashcity.org/viewstory.php?sid=623>  


  



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